Monster Hunter Rise Tips | Beginner's Guide

Chances are if you own a Nintendo Switch, you've heard about Monster Hunter Rise, the latest installment in Capcom's venerable action RPG series. It's a series that is notoriously hostile and impenetrable to new players, relying heavily on baked in knowledge and extensive wikis to fill in the gaps. However, we here at TechRaptor do our best to make sure new players have a handle on the basics before getting into a new series. If you're a total newbie to Monster Hunter or want to know how much things have changed, we have you covered here some Monster Hunter Rise Tips for Beginners.

Monster Hunter Rise Guide For Beginners – Exploring, Scavenging, and Pacing

Chances are if you're interested in Monster Hunter, you have some general idea of how a regular hunt goes. You and up to three friends are tasked with tracking down a giant monster, usually an armored version of a giant animal or a type of dragon with some sort of ridiculous power. You start mashing buttons to get in flashy and chaotic real-time battles until one of you stays down. You carve the monster for body parts to make better gear so you can fight something worse. Rinse and repeat until you're fighting something on the level of Godzilla.

But Monster Hunter Rise is a decidedly different beast when further examined. Everything from general gameplay feel to the surprisingly deep rabbithole of systems and mechanics on display can easily overwhelm. This is where the guide will mostly be focusing, since text and video can only do so much with a game that is more skill-based than other RPGs. Think of this as an extremely long cheatsheet.

First, some broad tips for complete newcomers. Number one: Do not rush a hunt. At first glace, it's easy to assume that Monster Hunter is just another action game where it's all about fast-paced combos and amazing devastating attacks that kill monsters instantly. Trust me, if you go in thinking like that, you will be tossed around like a ragdoll and burn out fast. Every single hunt in this game needs to be treated like a boss fight. These are marathons, not sprints.

Next, pay attention to how each monster moves. Monster Hunter's big claim to fame is its complex creature animation and how it's used to give each monster personality. It's how the game communicates the various states they are in since they have no health or status bars. In addition to seeing their various movement animations and attack patterns, they'll pant and salivate if they're exhausted, and limp if they're close to dead. Better yet, some monsters have their own preferred biomes to where they try to eat or sleep to recover from attack. For example, an Arzuros will head to rivers to fish or beehives to chow down on honey, which you could potentially use for ambushes or traps. There are dozens of monsters with quirks and behaviors like this, something that could be a guide in of itself, but half of the fun of Monster Hunter is observing them and figuring it out for yourself.

This dedication to realistic movement even relates to where you hit a monster. Aiming for the legs or feet can trip up a monster, leaving them open for punishing blows. Various body parts can even be broken or sliced off, limiting the kind of attacks they can do while giving you additional loot at the end of the hunt. If it looks important on the body, try to break it.

If you're still having trouble against tougher beasties, there is a simple pro tip that will do wonders: eat before every hunt. There's a restaurant counter in the starting village that serves Bunny Dangos, which are different flavored dumplings. You can order specific combinations that boost your damage and defense as well as give you perks for your hunt. These can range from getting more items from farmable resource spots to increased defense. Just go down a mental checklist every single time you start another hunt. Accept a new mission, check your inventory for supplies, eat a Bunny Dango, depart, hunt, win.

Finally, scavenge the environment and fool around with the crafting system. Scavenging in Monster Hunter is extremely important, since raw materials are used in everything from item crafting to weapon upgrades. Much like the monsters themselves, these resources pop up in natural zones at a reliable rate so get into the habit of marking where locations pop up and farm like mad. There is some RNG that determines what you get, and certain materials can only be obtained in High-Rank areas, essentially Monster Hunter Rise's endgame content, so be prepared for a lot of grinding. Kill smaller monsters and carve them up for Warm Pelts and raw meat. Keep mining and hope to get some precious Icium ore. Keep digging through bone piles for more Twisted Bones. If your storage box isn't full to bursting with hundreds, if not thousands, of generic crafting material and a small handful of rare ones, you better fix that.

In fact, exploring your environment is even more important in Monster Hunter Rise than any other title in the franchise. In addition to the usual resource spots where you can stock up on ore, bugs, and various herbs, there are glowing insects and fish you can collect. Get into a habit of finding these creatures during every hunt. Since they reliably spawn in certain areas, chart out a path where you collect them each time. Not only do picking these up increase your attack and defense, but slowly increase your maximum health and stamina gauges for this hunt. This is a major departure from prior games where drinking certain potions will do this for you. If you want every advantage against the monster you're hunting, and you will need it, get out there and get those bugs.

Thankfully, Monster Hunter Rise introduces some extra movement options that will make this exciting. One of the newest additions is the wirebug, which allows you to leap great distances and run up walls. Because of this, the environments are built with a lot of verticality in mind. If you see a string of dragonflies near a wall, start climbing that wall. There's a good chance you'll find some precious resources up there. As for ground traversal, you have your palamute companion, a warrior dog that helps you fight. With a few button presses, you can ride your palamute, helping you get across the map with ease.

Monster Hunter Rise Beginner's Guide - Crafting Tools and Companions

Finally, one of the most crucial systems to get a handle on is Monster Hunter Rise's crafting system. as you collect items and resources, you can combine some of them into useful tools for your hunts. How you use these items can mean the difference between being an unstoppable force of nature and getting thrashed about by your target like a ragdoll. There are tons of different kinds of seeds, herbs, and bugs in this game with a multitude of uses so collect en masse.

As for absolute must-have items, I have some suggestions. The first is honey. You can get honey from beehives and they should be easy to spot in forest areas. Collect this as much as you can, overstuff if you have to. It's a key ingredient in multiple advanced item recipes so it will be in high demand. If you think you have enough honey, you're wrong. The second are Kelbi Horns. These can be obtained by striking the heads of Kelbi, which look like deer with green pelts, which can usually be found in the Shrine Ruins. Finally, look for fishing spots and stock up on scatterfish, this will be important later.

While Monster Hunter Rise does have an auto-crafting system, which activates the minute you have the right ingredients, there are items that all experienced hunters should know about. Those items are the following:

• Herbal Medicine: Get an Antidote Herb, then combine it with a Blue Mushroom. This not only cures poison but it heals you as well, letting you get back in the fight faster.
• Energy Drink: Combine Nitroshrooms with Honey. This drink boosts your stamina and helps protect you from Sleep Effects.
• Cleanser: Combine Fire Herb and Popfish. This helps remove any webbing, gunk, or sludge that may be slowing you down
• Farcaster: Combine a Smokenut with an Exciteshroom. Use this and you'll immediately warp back to your base camp. This is great if you need to regroup or rearm in a tight spot.
• Mega-Potion: Combine a Potion with Honey. Congratulations you have a much better healing item.
• Ancient Potion: This is made by combining Immunizer (itself made with Bitterbug and Mandragora) with a Kelbi Horn. Drink this and all of your health and stamina are fully restored. You can only carry one at a time so use it as a last resort.
• Flash Bomb and Sonic Bomb: These are made by collecting Flashbugs and Screamer Sacs respectively. Throw these at the right time and you can blind or disorient certain monsters, great for combos and for quick escapes.
• Large Barrel Bomb: Made by mixing Gunpowder (Fire Herb and Nitroshroom) with a Large Barrel. Set these down in front of a sleeping or stunned monster then hit them as hard as you can for a giant boom.
• Mega Barrel Bomb: Combine the Large Barrel Bomb with Scatterfish. You now have an even bigger barrel bomb
• Demondrug and Armorskin: Combine Catalyst (made from Bitterbug and Honey) with either a Might Seed or an Adamant Seed. These are powerful consumables that boost your attack and defense respectively.
• Mega Demondrug and Mega Armorskin: Combine Demondrug/ Armorskin with Pale Extract. Pale Extract can only be gotten by beating certain monsters such as the Khezu. These are even more potent versions of Demondrug and Armorskin.
• Poisoned/Tinged/Drugged Meat: Take Raw Meat and combine it with Toadstools, Parashrooms, and Sleep Herb respectively. Set these treats in front of a monster, preferably one that is exhausted or salivating, and you can potentially mess it up further.
• Pitfall and Shock Traps: Combine a Trap Tool (these can be bought in Kamura Village) with either a Net (made from Ivy and Spider Webs) or a Thunderbug. Traps are great at incapacitating monsters or opening them up to bomb ambushes. Please note these won't work on certain endgame monsters
• Tranq Bombs: Combine Sleep Herbs and Parashrooms. Throw these bombs at a monster close to death and ensnared in a trap. After about two bombs, they will fall asleep and be captured. Certain parts can only be gotten this way.

Finally, there are your hunting companions. Even if you are not playing with friends, Monster Hunter Rise does have companions to help you. In addition to your palamute, you have your palico, a cat warrior that helps out as well. These buddies can help make or break difficult hunts. But above all, they can be improved as well. Get into a habit of going to the Buddy Plaza in the village. Here you will meet the Buddy Scout, which will let you hire additional palicos and palamutes. In addition, there is the Buddy Expert, which will train these companions when they're not in active use. Then there's the Meowcenaries character, which will send these buddies on side missions where they can collect additional items for you.

All of this micromanagement is important for two reasons. First, it'll help you get extra items in the long run. But second, as your companions level up, they'll gain additional perks, which will let them aid you in battle. Earplugs for example will let them shrug off a monster's roar. or Artful Dodger which makes them harder to hit. But the biggest bit of buddy info to keep in mind is their Support Type. Healer will drop healing area-of-effect fields from time to time. Bombardiers are great with explosives. Gatherers will help you pick up extra resources. The list goes on. You will want as wide a variety of buddies as you can if you want to get the most out of your hunts.

Believe it or not, this is still barely scratching the surface of what Monster Hunter Rise has to offer. We haven't even got into the weeds about the weapon and armor system or all of the extra ways you can make resource gathering easier on yourself.. But if you're just getting started, hopefully you're better off than where you were before. Happy hunting.